Support for less social people

Tag: plans

I’m looking for a partner to dance International Ballroom, to prepare for competitions by attending cheap classes at Caltech, Pasadena. Classes start mid-August 2015 and transition into the intermediate level October 2015. I have been attending for a year on and off, and last half a year regularly. I plan to dance all 10 dances, Latin and Standard.

For many of the “fringe interests”, there are conventions to make people feel they are not alone. Anime Expo have gathered 80 thousand people last year. Comic Con is coming up. Back in Russia we had LARP conventions, and the ones that are biggest around the world are probably computer game conventions. There is also DefCon in Las Vegas.

One thing that organizers do to occupy so many people is to have many events and attractions going on at once. It works as divide and conquer: the crowd is not uniform, some people have more serious pursuits, some have no idea what they came for, some are just having fun on the con. The list of con events is pretty much a slice of life, with all possible interests and ways to spend time represented. What to choose to meet new people? First, I tried to pick activities for the day that are not completely boring for me, in part so that people I meet are those I can relate to. Here are the choices that were available to me on Anime Expo:

Cosplay photohunt. List of cosplay gatherings is not official, and is available here.

Shopping …

Panel discussions on pretty much everything. They even had scientists writing their research paper about anime organized in some sort of symposium.

You get the idea – once the number of people scales up to tens of thousands, the event naturally starts to imitate a big city, with all the urban infrastructure. One difference is that in a real big city you have to go to work, while here it’s entertainment all day long. Having so much entertainment packed into just a few days makes it easy to find out what is your favorite pastime. However, for me it was more like running around, trying to catch a glance of every single activity, confirm that I’m not missing out on anything. Quite a few points on the list were genuinely interesting for me, but they either ended fast or didn’t keep my attention for long. So if I’m asked – what kind of person I am, what kind of interests should I list on twitter to pick people to follow – is this an acceptable answer? That I don’t care that much about any one thing, I just want to run around and see everything?

I guess not. One should have well defined interests, to select and focus attention in this sea of 80 thousand people. Indeed, even thought I didn’t shriek in excitement when I saw any particular character cosplayed, or didn’t wait in line for 2 hours to see my favorite show/celebrity, I still had some guiding principles to direct my choices. And the lines were never a problem – I was almost always able to get into the events I want just by showing up at the doors 20 minutes after the time it starts (except only the premiere of LWA2 and Cosplay Wrestling (???)).

Of the workshops, I went to the ones about writing fan fiction. Of the panels, I went to any discussing diversity in the geek community,

and also accidentally the one with Touhou shoot’em’up playthrough, which was an incredible feat of dexterity. I went to all comedy shows, avoiding the ones with particularly perverted theme (which were everywhere on Saturday evening). I didn’t go to dating event or to maid cafe, they are overcrowded by default. I went to watch the J-pop and the K-pop dance performances (the latter being bustling with fans, so one can hardly see the stage), then I danced at the club dance night. The latter convinced me that my current outfit is not suited for dancing, so I went on to look for party T-shirts and diode gloves in the shopping area. I was putting off exploration of the artist’s alley till the last day, and walking there is so overwhelming that I ended up not having time/energy to see more than 20% of it. Moral: visit artist alley every day for short periods instead of trying to marathon it. Besides T-shirts, I followed my interest for Art Nouveau – inspired paintings – there were quite a lot of artists borrowing from that style. I also looked out for menacing gothic helmets, but found none. Guess they didn’t get very popular. Surprisingly, I saw t-shirts with Girl Genius comic prints, even though official site doesn’t have any t-shirt in their merchandise.

Food trucks managed to keep my hunger away – the lines for them may look intimidating as they are under the sun, but ironically the trucks with healthy food never had lines in front of them. Ok, so of all these activities, which were the best to get to know other anime fans? There were a lot of really drunk folks on the dance, I could’ve interacted with them if I wanted. My anime club organized a meetup with Japanese cosplayers of the same anime, and that was a very eye-opening evening. There I met quite a lot of extremely Japanese people, and even had a chance to practice my language skills a bit. So the stereotypical ways to meet people: through friends and at the bar – probably work best. The 21+ lounge had a rock concert every evening, so there was something to do even for those who don’t drink. Besides them I talked to a very cheerful person in line for Dungeon Master – he even let me borrow his katana for a pic:

Artists are always up for a chat. I addressed some of the cosplayers with “What is your character”, and also “Where did you buy those” – which was very helpful to get directions in the shopping area. As I said, I don’t get overwhelmed by fan feelings no matter what I see, but if I did, shouting the name of the character you recognize is also acceptable.

For the time management – the main advice is to avoid being overwhelmed by the visual impressions of other people’s costumes and merchandise in the shopping area. Limit your time spend walking through the hallways to 15 minutes, take breaks, even by stepping in a random movie screening room. Take a break in a shopping area for a chat with someone, or to check your phone. Twitter was not very useful during the convention, but maybe I don’t have enough twitter experience to benefit from it. Many people complained about tired feet – make sure you have good shoes, bag on wheels is also a good choice if you are to carry heavy camera around – but make sure to leave it at the hotel/bag cheek-in before the dance. Have plenty of plastic bags to keep food away from other belongings – in my case, a very tasty chicken sauce spilled over my camera and my costume and ruined a bunch of photos: